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I will post all 3.3.XX updates there.

Links to download:

With CUDA, 32 bit

With CUDA, 64 bit

Without CUDA, 32 bit

Without CUDA, 64 bit

OSX build Download link

Linux build download link

Changelist:

3.3.14

- I made possibility to upload turnables automatically, very easy- see example - http://bit.ly/d3H3rc

- non-connected objects will be supported for Auto-retopo.

- Falloff will work in eraser tool too

- I made nice models preview in Merge/spline tools instead of old ugly file tree. I made this maily because I am about to provide big library of models in merge/spline tool and it will be just impossible to use it without nice previews. This is how it looks now - http://bit.ly/ds5R2I

- I disabled possibility to transform volume in proxy mode from surface to voxels to prevent loses. It changes nothing in workflow but prevents random loses while working with proxy.

- It will be possible to smooth UV islands edges in UV room in brush mode.

- Incorrect work of Split and Cut&Clone on some objects fixed (dense objects with high Split Border value).

- There is new and useful item in VoxTree RMB menu - Merge visible

- VoxTree/Shaders will be accesible in render room too

3.3.13

- Long-standing request implemented - painting over disconnected objects. You may choose the style of picking - see http://bit.ly/99A93S http://bit.ly/aKLRNk http://bit.ly/9pJsxe

- Vox tree + shaders will be accesible from the retopo room for convenience.

- Clone & Clone with symmetry will clone child objects too.

- I improved vertex picking in retopo room so that it will be much easier to pick desired vertex to be tweaked. Now it picks closest vertex inside pen radius + picks vertices that are outside the reference mesh.

- I found and fixed major snapping/baking problem to voxel surafce in surface mode.

- Edit projection/layers in external editor instability fixed.

- Solved the applink issue mentioned there - http://bit.ly/bwWPho

- Desaturate/Darken/... etc in paint room will respect mask.

- EXR/32 bit TIFF padding problem fixd - http://bit.ly/aBNKEE

3.3.12

(Incremental update, should be installed overwrite of 3.3.08 or later)

- fixed major symmetry bug from previous version. Now after applying symmetry in retopo room you UV-coordinates will be copied too.

- clone will copy child objects too. I will do the same tor clone with symmetry in the next build.

- default values for auto-retopology are changed to better values

- Merge tool in "On pen" mode got very handy improvement - Depth value of pen will be treated as depth of penetration of merged object to the surface.

3.3.11:

- I improved following guides-strokes in auto-retopo. 3DC will follow guides much better.

- UV room got correct support of non-square UV maps

- Microvertex/ptex painting got several bugfixes -

- the problem with smoothed edges when mesh is loaded on lowest subd level solved. Also edges will not be distorted when resolution is low.

- Change resolution works correctly on open meshes

- painting with strokes will distort surface imediately (not when stroke ended)

- fixed bug in retopo room when it was impossible to drop invisible layer to the trash can.

- I improved ptex export/import because it starts to be used in other software more and more. Ptex export/import will work much faster, mipmaps are supported too. Also I made support of export/import ptex vector displacement. You may export absolute positions too. It opens good way to interoperate with Mudbox because it supports ptex vector displacement. I hope ZBrush will get ptex support too, then interoperation between MB & ZB & 3DC will be absolutely smooth and easy.

3.3.10

- I brought auto-retopology to easily usable stage.It loors like wizard with several stages to draw guides, paint dense areas.

- Possibility to autoretopo external objects right from File->Import menu. It will automatically close holes, convert to voxels and perform autoretopology. On this stage I will make short pause (several days) to fix bugs and solve urgent issues from the forum.

- I have add new very important option to export setting "Perform coarsing". It is inverse to subdivision. If you will export low poly mesh with this option 3D-Coat will "sharpen" mesh in so way that in your 3D-package you will get same model as mid-poly in 3D-Coat after subdivision with Catmull-Clark. It is absolutely important if you want to get displacement and low poly mesh as result. If you will export displacement and low poly mesh, import in your package, subdivide mesh, apply displacement and get same result as in 3DC.

- New option in baking dialog - "Don't snap subdivided vertices" to get very smooth mesh on layer 0 and good displacement on other layers.

- New option in import dialog - "Don't center bounding box" to avoid loosing symmetry of imported object if it is only partially symmetrical.

- fixed: Curves in "E" panel will not be lost if you will try to edit them and drag parameters message box

- While resolving the issue http://bit.ly/c8FyEO I made 3DC to work correctly with Paint.net and other psd-painters.

- Fixed urgent problem mentioned by Tinker - http://bit.ly/9YOSsf (problem with incorrect merging to transformed volumes in some cases)

- fixed: Clear seams and Auto seams will act only on current UV set in UV room. Seams will be auto-set between faces in different UV sets.

- fixed laggy work of lines mode int "E" panel. Undo/redo will work correctly too.

- fixed bug in retopo room when it was impossible to drop invisible layer to the trash can.

3.3.09

- new Quadrangulation routine (still slightly raw)! Symmetry is supported, but not excellent. I already made is very god, but will upload it after getting back from SIGGRAPH. To use new feature go to retopo strokes, add strokes if beed, then VoxTree->RMB->Quadrangulate

3.3.08 [beta]:

- The problem with exporting 4K/8K textures in Ptex mode solved.

- The problem with image picker solved (including incorrect work of Paste button)

- There is new section in preferences to customize how pen looks in usual and CAPS modes - http://bit.ly/9zZzz8

3.3.07 [beta]:

- I made multithreaded merge. The merging procedure was rewritten almost from scratch to be scalable. It works much faster, consumes very low amount of memory and produces better quality of the mesh. Also I worked couple of days over making all surface-merging-based tools like move, pose, surface->voxels transition to work clean and I hope I succeed with it. It is most important part of all voxel sculpting.

- I made possibility to choose texture resolution if you want to export ptex as usual model+texture. Look it in change local res tool.

- There is new checker in Ptex export/import menu - "Flip ptex quads" for better compatibility with renderman.

- There was lags in voxel tools when something big was changed due to Undo info saving. I made saving much faster, it speeded up many tools.

- Retopo meshes will be automatically cleaned up to avoid non-manifold topology that caused hang-ups during unwrapping and many other problems

- I made that if you are trying to save file to write protected location you will be warned to prevent loss of data.

- CTRL+SHIFT in merge tool will lead to intersection.

- Smoth with SHIFT will work correctly in Move tool.

- I made possibility to change the color of wirefrime (preferences).

- Retopo mesh will be optionally shown in render room to help in making demo reels

- correctly working cavity in PP mode.

3.3.06 [beta]:

[28 June 2010 - 3.3.06 re-uploaded to solve GTX 470/480 issue]

- Caching of volumes with non-unique names is supported.

- he problem with camera shortcuts solved - http://bit.ly/acl0gB

- Retopo strokes tool improved to work better on very small sized objects

- Fixed the issue in retopo strokes tool: http://bit.ly/dy8tRj

- Several longstanding issues with retopo strokes (slices) solved - green circles (unclosed) instead of orange (closed), missed quads

- Fixed pose tool smoothing issue: http://bit.ly/boiqd5

3.3.05 [beta]

- Well known "faceting" problem while baking to MV/Ptex of higher resolutions solved in both - voxel and surface modes. All looks very smooth after baking. Also baking and snapping quality to voxels in surface mode improved essentially.

- Obsolete links to images in image picker will be removed because it can cause crash at startup.

- Edges highlighted in viewport will be highlighted in UV preview window too - http://bit.ly/9bNZze

- Several small improvements: SL import corrected, new buttons in UV tool - Restore UV and Auto Scale (read hints)

- I made SHIFT constraint to work well in retopo strokes mode

- I made support of picking color from clipboard. In so way you may pick color from Photoshop and Leigh's reference image app. If clipboard has 6 hexadecmail digits 3D-Coat treats it as color.

3.3.04 [beta]

- Solved problem of "Waves" in multiresolution

- The problem of slowdowns in retopo room reported by AbnRanger solved. See report there - http://bit.ly/9elK6K

3.3.03 [beta]

- Multiresolution for voxels is done. It is well multicore optimized. You will be able to degrade object, modify low poly mesh and combine together low and high frequency details. On my thought it is could be even better then usual multires because usually mesh could be degraded only to initial polycount but in our case any mesh can be degraded to any degree. This is for example scan data that has no lowpoly initial proxy.

- Corrected message in Retopo menu - Apply symmetry to all layers, new item is there - Apply symmetry to the current layer

- The problem with symmetry in voxels resolved - http://bit.ly/9diTKu

- Solved problem from the previous build - resizing texture clears layers contence.

- The bug with normalmap baking (voxels->ppp) fixed - http://bit.ly/ddLx5b

3.3.02 [beta]

- I made support of caching of voxel volumes. You may cache any vol to disk and leave only low poly proxy of the volume. In so way you can preserve memory and increase speed of sculpting.

- The problem with SpaceNavigator drifting on OSX finally solved. Some details about OSX & Space Navigator drifting problem - http://bit.ly/bi9Och

- Unwrapping of big meshes in UV tool improved - muh better stability and speed of unwrap.

- Solved problem from the previous build - resizing texture clears layers contence.

- The problem with edit projection in orthographic mode solved - http://bit.ly/b03gr8

3.3.01

- I made the same transform gizmo for retopo tool (on Import) as for Transform tool in Voxels. Undo works there too.

- I improved gizmo used in Transform and Retopo to avoid contradiction between moving gizmo in screen space and rotation of the scene.

- I made support of multiple UV sets management in UV room. You may change UV set of any face, add UV-set, remove unused UV-set. New UV stuff will work in both - per-pixel and microvert mode. Previously only per-pixel was supporting multiple uv sets in UV tool.

- Naming of objects merged from retopo to paint room improved - name of object will be combined from groups names instead of RetopoSurfaceXX

- "Update islands" crash fixed - http://bit.ly/bBt2lr

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Thanks Andrew. Very nice update. There is one thing. When you are using Microverts way, if my main resolution is 512 and then I change some faces into 2048

I really don't see a change in resolution in paint room. In per pixel I do, but not in Microverts. I'm not quite sure is this a bug or is this just how it works.

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The multi-UV features in the UV room are nice! Now I don't have to export and create the multiple UV's in another program.

Andrew, do you have plans on bringing multi-UV features to the retopo room?

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3.3.02 uploaded (Mac+Win are there, Linux - soon)

- I made support of caching of voxel volumes. You may cache any vol to disk and leave only low poly proxy of the volume. In so way you can preserve memory and increase speed of sculpting.

- The problem with SpaceNavigator drifting on OSX finally solved. Some details about OSX & Space Navigator drifting problem - http://bit.ly/bi9Och

- Unwrapping of big meshes in UV tool improved - muh better stability and speed of unwrap.

- Solved problem from the previous build - resizing texture clears layers contence.

- The problem with edit projection in orthographic mode solved - http://bit.ly/b03gr8

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Thanks for the speedy work on this build, Andrew. With a little planning, this Cache feature should make it possible for us to reach higher levels of detail. Do you have any notes you can pass along, until the feature is covered in the manual? I'm curious whether cached layers, whether they are visible or hidden, are treated as though they are "Frozen" or not.

Personally, it doesn't yet matter much to me. I just don't want the layers that I have hidden to soak up any RAM. Also, if a person uses "Cell Hide" or "Hide" on their current active layer, does the hidden part get cached or does its data reside in RAM still? For example, if I'm working on a character, I may not have to separate him into so many layers if I can use the "Hide" tool to isolate just the area I'm working on, and in doing so, reduce the memory load?

Thanks again for this build...I think it's going to prove to be a big step for Voxel Sculpting.

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windows build is re-uploading to fix 3DArtist's problem. It will be on server in 5-7 min.

Caching looks very promising Andrew!

I saw much faster and stronger smoothing, more responsive move-brush and Transforms.

However - also with the newly uploaded version I still see the mesh reset to the previous state after

uncaching - but maybe I am doing something wrong?

I pressed the Voxel-Layer to cache and uncache - how is this thought?

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Caching looks very promising Andrew!

I saw much faster and stronger smoothing, more responsive move-brush and Transforms.

However - also with the newly uploaded version I still see the mesh reset to the previous state after

uncaching - but maybe I am doing something wrong?

I pressed the Voxel-Layer to cache and uncache - how is this thought?

Do you mean you cached it, worked on the proxy, then uncached it? As cool as that would be, this is not multi-res sculpting, it's just for reducing the load on your computer so you can work easier on the uncached layers. Perhaps the cached proxy should be olocked so you can't sculpt on it, to avoid confusion.

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Do you mean you cached it, worked on the proxy, then uncached it? As cool as that would be, this is not multi-res sculpting, it's just for reducing the load on your computer so you can work easier on the uncached layers. Perhaps the cached proxy should be olocked so you can't sculpt on it, to avoid confusion.

Oh really? Wouldn't this be a wasted feature?

I thought that this could get a way to do Surface-Sculpting and Voxel-Sculpting in one Room.

On a cached mesh I could for the first time smooth with huge brushes which were unusable both

in Voxel and in Surface-Mode thus far...

Btw: it is possible to sculpt on a cached mesh and merge to the paint-room without previous uncaching...

Edited by polyxo
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Not a waste at all suppose I have two voxel objects on separate layers. They're both really dense so they move pretty slowly and it's hard to work with them. If I cache the one I'm not working on things get much faster for the one I am working on. Unless I'm missing something of course.

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I did a quick test using the increase brush on a cached proxy (testing to see if it was editable or frozen), and I was blown away with the sculpting speed. It has to be every bit as fast as Mudbox or ZBrush.

I think Andrew may have stumbled upon something here...

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Oh really? Wouldn't this be a wasted feature?

I thought that this could get a way to do Surface-Sculpting and Voxel-Sculpting in one Room.

On a cached mesh I could for the first time smooth with huge brushes which were unusable both

in Voxel and in Surface-Mode thus far...

Btw: it is possible to sculpt on a cached mesh and merge to the paint-room without previous uncaching...

I absolutely agree that multiresolution will be more then useful. And it will be logical next step. Caching is just first step to this long-long-waiting direction.

I hope multiresolution will be there until 3.4 (but I can't promise, all depends on how successfull experiments will be). But in general I assume to do it in so way (description is simplified):

1) If model is in voxel mode then after returning from cached state the cache:

- IncRes required amount of times

- Light extrude in negative direction

- Compose original volume and extruded cache with addition

- Light extrude in positive direction

- Intersect original volume with extruded cache

2) If cache is in surface mode (and was there from the beginning) -

- calculate weights correspondence between old mesh and lowpoly cache mesh using distance weighting.

- apply deformations of low-poly mesh to high poly mesh using that weights.

Second way is slightly more realistic and closer to original multiresolution conception.

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3.3.02 uploaded (Mac+Win are there, Linux - soon)

- I made support of caching of voxel volumes. You may cache any vol to disk and leave only low poly proxy of the volume. In so way you can preserve memory and increase speed of sculpting.

- The problem with SpaceNavigator drifting on OSX finally solved. Some details about OSX & Space Navigator drifting problem - http://bit.ly/bi9Och

- Unwrapping of big meshes in UV tool improved - muh better stability and speed of unwrap.

- Solved problem from the previous build - resizing texture clears layers contence.

- The problem with edit projection in orthographic mode solved - http://bit.ly/b03gr8

I know everybody is happy about the new cache function and the first developement to accelerate voxels, but... The little 3rd point in the upper update list is very important too. Why? I give you an example: I have a model, that needed every time 45 Minutes(!) to unwrap, it has over 2 millions polygons. A lot of time to wait for unwrap. This was in the previous versions...

Now the same mesh needs just 2 MINUTES! This is more than 22[edited] times faster, than before. And I have a lot of highres models. I hope you can imagine, what this means for our work with high poly meshes.

Good work, Andrew. I am very curious for the brush optimisation, that you have on your plan, too.

Best wishes

Chris

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Andrew,

I don't seem to recall having this issue before but it's been awhile since I've tried it so I can't be 100%. When exporting an obj from Voxels and exporting a retopo mesh wrapped to that voxel mesh I get 2 very different sized meshes. Is there an option or workaround that I'm missing to export a voxel (high poly) mesh and a retopo mesh the same size? The purpose for this was to bake out additional maps in xNormal. I checked the scale in other apps such as ZBrush and 3dsmax and they are consistent in that they come out different sizes. The retopo mesh is a good 3x larger.

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I absolutely agree that multiresolution will be more then useful. And it will be logical next step. Caching is just first step to this long-long-waiting direction.

Hi Andrew,

thank you for your reply! I am glad that multiresolution is on your Radar :)

However:

Doesn't caching maybe give you the chance to no more having to differenciate

between a dedicated Voxel-Workspace and a Surface-"Sub-Room"?

I personally am far more interested in a solid and fast Voxel-toolset in order

to freely create Volumes than in High Frequency Detail (like Pores and Micro-Wrinkles).

It would be awesome to get all this work done inside just one workspace without

having to change between Voxel - and Surface-Workbench.

Is there a chance that we can toggle an object (or unmasked parts if it)between an

acurate Voxel-representation and a lossy (but blazing fast) Proxy-representation

with a Hotkey while staying inside just one Workspace?

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Excellent work Andrew and best wishes for success with your experiments. From the dedication you have shown I'm sure you will overcome anything that is possible.

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I would rather get away from the term 'caching' and instead use the term 'Proxy' or just 'Lo Res'. The caching process shouldn't really concern be of too much concern to the end user. The caching and freeing of memory should be a bonus side effect of the proxy. The main feature of having a proxy object should be that 3D Coat can display the proxy when the user pans or rotates the camera, resulting in better frame rates.

This is basically how things work in ZBrush or Mudbox, you can switch to a lower subdivision in order to improve frame rates or for editing the low detail version of the object. Switching to a lower subdivision will give ZBrush the opportunity to cache the higher subdivisions, but only if memory is getting low.

Memory management should be invisible to the end user.

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I know everybody is happy about the new cache function and the first developement to accelerate voxels, but... The little 3rd point in the upper update list is very important too. Why? I give you an example: I have a model, that needed every time 45 Minutes(!) to unwrap, it has over 2 millions polygons. A lot of time to wait for unwrap. This was in the previous versions...

Now the same mesh needs just 2 MINUTES! This is more than 5 times faster, than before. And I have a lot of highres models. I hope you can imagine, what this means for our work with high poly meshes.

Good work, Andrew. I am very curious for the brush optimisation, that you have on your plan, too.

Best wishes

Chris

I agree....I was experiencing similar issues a few weeks ago, and am glad that has been addressed. Still having niggly issues in the Retopo room from time to time, where it seems like it just wants to fight....but on the whole, this has been a good week.

I would rather get away from the term 'caching' and instead use the term 'Proxy' or just 'Lo Res'. The caching process shouldn't really concern be of too much concern to the end user. The caching and freeing of memory should be a bonus side effect of the proxy. The main feature of having a proxy object should be that 3D Coat can display the proxy when the user pans or rotates the camera, resulting in better frame rates.

This is basically how things work in ZBrush or Mudbox, you can switch to a lower subdivision in order to improve frame rates or for editing the low detail version of the object. Switching to a lower subdivision will give ZBrush the opportunity to cache the higher subdivisions, but only if memory is getting low.

Memory management should be invisible to the end user.

I don't have any issues with framerates in 3DC, so I don't personally see the benefit of showing a proxy when the camera moves about the object...not yet anyway.

ZB and MB have different issues than those present in Voxel sculpting. Caching to disk manually is a END USER tool, to manage memory in the scene...not a background memory function. I think ultimately, it would be good to have anything hidden to be cached automatically (in the background so that there is no waiting needed before moving on to the next task).

However, as it stands, I like Andrew's implementation of this feature and think it's a big step in the right direction

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Andrew,

I don't seem to recall having this issue before but it's been awhile since I've tried it so I can't be 100%. When exporting an obj from Voxels and exporting a retopo mesh wrapped to that voxel mesh I get 2 very different sized meshes. Is there an option or workaround that I'm missing to export a voxel (high poly) mesh and a retopo mesh the same size? The purpose for this was to bake out additional maps in xNormal. I checked the scale in other apps such as ZBrush and 3dsmax and they are consistent in that they come out different sizes. The retopo mesh is a good 3x larger.

Export Object from voxtree is broken,Andrew tried to fix it but it didnt work.

To get matching scale with retopo export you need to export your voxel object using either

Export Scene or Export Pattern from voxtree.

(don't worry,export pattern works exactly like a normal export...you even get decimation control :) )

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